Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CNN 2017 undercover videos controversy


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to James O'Keefe. Clear consensus not to keep (especially given that many "keep" opinions are very perfunctory). It's less clear what if anything to do with the content. Just deleting it has no consensus, and there's no clear consensus either for a merge target. But any merger can be worked out editorially. For now I'm closing this as redirect to the indicated target because that's where the issue is already covered.  Sandstein  14:50, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

CNN 2017 undercover videos controversy

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

WP:NOTNEWS, for starters. No reliable sources cited (YouTube is not a reliable source.) NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:47, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * There have been a couple reliable sources added since then, but "network employee disagrees with his network's coverage of an issue" is dog bites man stuff, and at this point there's no evidence that this is going to get the sort of lasting coverage needed to make it more than a one-time news story. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 03:00, 28 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep This AfD is premature. No reliable sources? Come on. A quick google search yields dozens of results from mainstream news outlets such as USA Today, ABC news, LA Times, The Hill, and others. So please, try improving the article first before deleting it in less than one hour after its creation. Étienne Dolet (talk) 02:58, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * This isn't Wikinews and we don't write articles about every single thing that ends up in a news publication once or twice. Some evidence of enduring encyclopedicity is needed. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 03:00, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Of course Wikip is not a news agency. However this is supposed to be an encyclopedic article about an event of significant imp. While YT is indeed not a reliable source, it is yet the only source for this info. Plus, CNN has said video = legitimate.
 * Also, I recall requesting to delete a page concerning Comey's memos. My request got denied for the same reason that we are giving out here: this is an event of significant imp. Reporting on Apple's new revolutionary vision API would not suit Wikipedia. Reporting on CNN being allegedly secretly taped and claimed to be focused on Trump to boost ratings is not. At least the 1.3 million people don't believe it isn't imp. Thank you.--Smghz (talk) 03:33, 28 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Redirect to James O'Keefe Project Veritas - This video represents one of the many things that James O'Keefe has done in his career. It has yet developed to be on the same level as his other actions (none of which are notable enough to be independent from O'Keefe himself). Unless this goes on for more than a month (which is very likely), this doesn't need an independent article.  Yoshiman6464   ♫🥚 03:47, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I respect that, but other comparable events had their pages written in a matter of hours. See Comey memos for an example. Also see Trump's disclosure of classified information to Russia for another. There is a lot more info being uncovered as we speak. There is potential to this article and unfortunately I don't think that is being seen. Thanks.--Smghz (talk) 03:50, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't really consider the events comparable. There is only one sitting FBI Director and only one sitting POTUS at any given time both obviously being extremely high/important positions. So a controversy or a serious event involving either(or both) of them will always have a resonating level of significance. The opinions of a handful of the thousands of employees or dozen(hundred? idk how any) of producers that CNN has, is not really comparable. Even if it was the President/CEO/Directors saying the same comments, while it would be a lot more significant/notable, it still wouldn't be comparable to Comey/Trump since it still just the opinions of citizens. WikiVirusC (talk) 19:37, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Edit: I changed my destination from James O'Keefe to Project Veritas because it is an action done by the organization itself. My stance on redirection still stands.  Yoshiman6464   ♫🥚 12:50, 28 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment: Maybe it's time Project Veritas got its own article, separate from James O'Keefe. Then we could merge this article into there. Also the title of this article should probably be "American Pravda". FallingGravity 04:04, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed, looking at James O'Keefe's article, it's pretty much all about what his organization has been doing, and there's surely enough to support an independent article about it rather than stuffing it all in his biography. Then, as you say, this content could be merged there with all the others. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:13, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed as well. James O'Keefe hosts the videos, while others are sent to secretly record. In fact, one of the filmers (Allison Maass) was recorded bribing others to incite violence, and was featured on Huffington Post and Snopes. Furthermore, the organization is being sued in a million dollar lawsuit, per this Snopes article. Be Bold.  Yoshiman6464   ♫🥚 12:42, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Project Veritas would be a reasonable spinoff article per Wikipedia guidelines. WP:SPINOFF. Ceosad (talk) 19:10, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of News media-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist  (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 04:09, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist  (Speak quickly) (Follow my trail) 04:09, 28 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete - given that O'Keefe has " O’Keefe has previously spliced videos together to imply its subjects were saying things they were not.", this whole article as written is one big BLP vio (regarding Bonifield) as it's basically used to spread unverifiable attacks on a living person. The notability is unlikely to last, per WP:NOTNEWS.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:57, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * If somebody creates an article on Project Veritas then *some* of it, properly minding BLP, can be merged into that article.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:57, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep WhiteHouse encouraged the press and the public to watch it.[]


 * Keep However, I agree with advice above to put this as a header for a Project Veritas article. It is now time for it. --Smghz (talk) 05:54, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete or redirect to James O'Keefe - per WP:NOTNEWS; and the sooner an enterprising admin slaps a 7-day-old minimum on new US politics articles the better. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 08:09, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Redirect/Merge to James O'Keefe -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 09:55, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep for now, the sourcing is adequate. When/if Project Veritas is a standalone article, it can then redirect or whatever there. ValarianB (talk) 11:48, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Good article with good sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.52.39.24 (talk) 04:55, 28 June 2017
 * Keep or merge into the other article when created. 81.157.84.189 (talk) 12:19, 28 June 2017 (UTC)


 * The only one who is causing strife here is you. You should be penalized for not only insulting other users but also using a homophobic insult. Not allowed.--Smghz (talk) 16:19, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * That's what, the third or fourth IP to show up to !vote Keep on this article. Somebody's coordinating off wiki.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:55, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree, this stinks of socks, meat, or recruitment. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:59, 28 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep for now. Merge into CNN controversies. This AfD is premature. Certainly the tapes are receiving plenty of attention from reliable sources, but as this is a developing story (with tapes being released daily) it's impossible to even guess at their lasting notability. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:52, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Apparently no more videos are being released, and this story has had some time to percolate, and it appears to be nothing but a nothingburger. WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NOPAGE. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:12, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. This is POV fork of page James O'Keefe or page CNN. If I understand correctly, this page is about a tape where John Bonifield tells his personal opinion that the Trump-Russia connection is "mostly bullshit". Of course if Bonifield was someone with deep and specific knowledge of the subject, his opinion could be placed on a page about the alleged Trump-Russia connection, but we do not even have such page (?) However, I fail to see this "mostly bullshit" as an encyclopedic subject. My very best wishes (talk) 19:01, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Even if it's "mostly bullshit," it might be notable "mostly bullshit." Remember that we have articles about hoaxes and other things that are "completely bullshit." --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:50, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I do not see how this is notable alone. Perhaps this belongs to page CNN? My very best wishes (talk) 00:56, 29 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Redirect/Merge to O'Keefe, there's already a section about it there (under development) in which the content of this article can comfortably fit. Saturnalia0 (talk) 21:45, 28 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Redirect/Merge to James O'Keefe or Project Veritas. Having a separate article gives undue weight for the topic. WP:NPOVVIEW. Ceosad (talk) 19:10, 29 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment Again, this AfD is premature. There's more videos coming out and the series is not even over yet. A new video, which according to O'Keefe will be "bigger than Bonifield" will be out in a few hours. The notability of this video series is rising quite exponentially. These videos have been the top trending in YouTube for the past couple of days now. Would advise that users participating in this AfD take this into consideration. Étienne Dolet (talk) 06:18, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * "Bigger than Bonifield" is saying very little; that video made news for about 5 minutes and then disappeared. The video of Van Jones saying something that he's said on national TV for months now was an even tastier nothingburger. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. We don't write articles about things people breathlessly claim will happen. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:CRYSTALBALL. Seriously, if the "AfD is premature" because supposedly "stuff will happen in the future" then... don't freakin' create an article on it yet!!! How hard is that? I mean, that's not even like WP:NOTNEWS, it's WP:NOTNOTEVENYETNEWS. Volunteer Marek (talk) 12:06, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Might also add that so far both released videos have been duds (except in portions of the far right internet). First one is some non-notable employee of CNN who has nothing to do with their political coverage, second one is a straight up deceptive hoax. With this record, I seriously doubt the "more videos coming out" is gonna matter much.Volunteer Marek (talk) 12:08, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Seriously. Like, after a few days, it seems like all of these videos only further tarnish Mr. O'Keefe's reputation as a deceptive editor. The only problem left is Mr. Bonifield's own response, but it looks like from his description that he is just expressing an opinion not representative of most of CNN's political "contributors". I'd love to know future directions on the standing of this page. Thanks.--smghz (talk) 14:03, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I actually rather like the third one Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:39, 30 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Redirect to James O'Keefe; this is not a controversy -- merely a stunt. Not independently notable from the person behind it. K.e.coffman (talk) 16:07, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Redirect to James O'Keefe - merely one stunt/hoax among many. Neutralitytalk 23:04, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep for now As the number of videos by this organization keeps growing, we can later make a determination of whether to keep it as its own article or merge it into CNN controversies.F2Milk (talk) 00:32, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:CRYSTALBALL. If the number of videos grows and gets attention in sources THEN you can create the article. You've got it completely backwards.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:01, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
 * And yeah, this is another sketchy throw away account with just a few edits.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:02, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
 * That's not very nice, please keep it WP:CIVIL.F2Milk (talk) 00:49, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

* Speedy keep: This has been at the top of the news for the past week, it's clearly notable enough for its own article. Jdcomix (talk) 17:42, 1 July 2017 (UTC) Merge with CNN controversies - Opinion has changed, no evidence of lasting notability. Jdcomix (talk) 13:16, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: I, like others have before me in this discussion, emphasize that this AfD is not premature. Mainspace content must meet mainspace policies from the moment they are created or moved to article space. The key policies here being WP:NOT and WP:N. If someone wants to experiment with content that does not presently meet these criteria, it should be done in Draft or User space. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 11:32, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Don't know what news you're watching, but this has NOT been at "the top of the news". There were a couple articles about it. The whole Mika Brzezinsky and Joe Scarborough thing got wayyyyyy more attention and we don't even have an article on that (not that we necessarily should).Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:01, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know what news you're watching where they **aren't** covering this. The videos posted to Project Veritas's YouTube channel have 1 million+ views each (which admittedly isn't important, but shows it's at least quite notable). Fox News, Breitbart, New York Times, and Washington Post have all come out with reports on the story, and they were near the top of the website for a day or so. Jdcomix (talk) 16:07, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The Post and the Times barely wrote anything about it except when mentioning O'Keefe's destroyed reputation. O'Keefe's crediblity has been questioned not once, not twice, but multiple times. He has been jailed for a federal crime and had to pay fines. Even with these CNN tapes, there are question marks about who these persons are, how representative they are of CNN as an organization (well, maybe except Zucker), and if what they said was situated deceptively in a context to achieve political gains. That is why these tapes are edit and not released raw. NYT, Post, NPR, etc. are reliable organizations that attempt to discuss issues from every part of the political spectrum fairly and objectively. Unfortunately that is not what you see on Fox News, Breitbart, or Drudge, not because they are conservative (WSJ is a world-class conservative organization), but because they are propagandistic. It tarnishes their reputation when they put O'Keefe on their frontpages.--Smghz (talk) 16:22, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * This will probably get a lot of heat, but although I agree with Fox News, Breitbart, and Drudge being heavily biased towards the right, NYT, WAPO, and NPR are clearly biased towards the left. I agree that they are more reliable sources, but I just wanted to point out that objectivity doesn't really work on either side in this case. Jdcomix (talk) 16:57, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree, but it doesn't take much of a brain to know you shouldn't make a headline glorifying a guy with negative credibility. --Smghz (talk) 17:49, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * This is very much down in the weeds, and very far away from the purposes of this discussion. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 06:43, 4 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I would not say any of those news sources are "biased" (especially NYT, Post, NPR, and Fox News). They all mostly report the same news, its just that the reporters just have political prefrences and that shows. Its not like they are REAL fake news. The only real fake news outlets that I can think of are Alex Jones and Project Veritas.--ANDREWs13 (talk) 00:28, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Merge to Project Veritas or James O'Keefe. No likelihood of long-lasting independent notability of those recordings independently of their author. — JFG talk 14:40, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge to CNN controversies. The article is much more than stub-length, the subject has been cover by multiple reliable sources, and CNN's low credibly has been a big discussion in several significant and reliable media sources. Would definitely be important to be included on Wikipedia in some way or another. editorEهեইдအ😎 13:46, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Merge To CNN controversies because this was a small "controversy", if you can even call it that. It did not "expose" much (part 2 nothing). And Project Veritas is very biased, and they have been discredited many times. This sloppy Hit piece on CNN does not deserve nor need a whole article.--ANDREWs13 (talk) 00:15, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Merge It is interesting, but not of great note; it is likely that few will recall this episode a year from now. It will in the future probably be of relevance to the story of James O'Keefe, but not particularly pertinent to the story of CNN or to the fate of America.  There's no reason it can't be incorporated into the O'Keefe article alongside his other work. Cpaaoi (talk) 00:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep in the strongest terms: The controversy has received widespread media coverage from every major outlet, and the coverage is ongoing. The POTUS and other administration officials have directed the public to view the videos. A rapist should not go free because the victim was a call girl, and O'Keefe's undercover work should not be ignored because he has been criticized for poor journalism.Hidden Tempo (talk) 04:01, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete primarily per WP:TNT. Part of the page is promotional for O'Keefe's work, the rest is biased against him. There's no suitable redirect target for this term; I'm not opposed to moving any content to James O'Keefe or Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Power~enwiki (talk) 05:00, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. The article is about a video created by a person known for creating heavily edited videos to purposely mislead. Even if that weren’t true, what’s the importance? Some possible grumbling by staff? WP:UNDUE I also think there are BLP issues with including secretly recorded quotes that were likely taken out of context. Objective3000 (talk) 10:47, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.